Friday, October 19, 2012

Run 106

I can't believe that the end of this adventure is in sight. Soon I will be able to say that I have seen every square inch of Manhattan. There's a few unique things that accompany that experience. First of all, If I'm in an area I'm not familiar with, or haven't spent time in, I have this weird comfort of knowing I've been there before. Second, I've learned many things about New York (maybe useless info, but..) that I would have never known, with out this adventure. I don't think I can accurately describe how it feels, but I did find a list called "random facts about New York". I thought maybe I'd share that with you, hoping you learn some thing that others don't know, so you get a small glimpse into the feeling I have about the little randoms facts I have gained running every street. 1. Madison Square Park, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, and Bryant Park used to be cemeteries. There are 20,000 bodies buried in Washington Square Park alone.

2. The Manhattan grid pattern produces an effect known as “Manhattanhenge” (like Stonehenge) as, on two days – around May 28th and around July 12th – sunset is directly aligned with the street grid pattern. This means the sun can be seen setting exactly over the centerline of every Manhattan street. A similar effect occurs during sunrise on two winter days, understandably less popular.

3. The scary nitrogen gas tanks you see on the corners of streets are used to keep underground telephone wires dry.

4. The city of New York will pay for a one-way plane ticket for any homeless person if they have a guaranteed place to stay.

5. On Nov. 28, 2012, not a single murder, shooting, stabbing, or other incident of violent crime in NYC was reported for an entire day. The first time in basically ever.

6. In New York City there are more than 26,000 people living in each square mile.

7. In 2013, the average weekday subway ridership was 5.5 million. Annual ridership was 1.7 billion. However, that doesn’t match the all-time annual ridership record which is 2.1 billion passengers set back in 1946.

8. New York City has more people than 39 of the 50 states in the U.S.

9. There is a birth in New York City every 4.4 minutes.

10. There is a death in New York City every 9.1 minutes.

11. The Federal Reserve Bank on New York’s Wall Street contains vaults that are located 80 feet beneath the bank and hold about 25 percent of the world’s gold bullion.

12. On a clear day, the Empire State Building offers 80 miles of visibility, which encompasses parts of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

13. About 1 in every 38 people living in the United States resides in New York City.

14. The borough of Brooklyn on its own would be the fourth largest city in the United States. Queens would also rank fourth nationally.

15. New York City has the largest Chinese population of any city outside of Asia.

16. New York has the largest Puerto Rican population of any city in the world.

17. More than 47 percent of New York City’s residents over the age of 5 speak another language other than English at home.

18. New York’s Central Park is larger than the principality of Monaco.

19. Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.

20. Manhattan’s daytime population swells to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.34 million people.

21. New York City served as the capital of the United States in the 1780s before it was moved to Philadelphia and then Washington D.C.

22. There was one homicide on 9/11, and it remains unsolved.

23. Albert Einstein’s eyeballs are stored in a safe deposit box in the city.

24. New York City’s Chinatown is the largest Chinese enclave in the Western Hemisphere.

25. Phantom of the Opera is currently the longest running show in Broadway history, with over 9100 performances.

26. New York City taxi cabs are yellow because according to car salesman John Hertz (1907), yellow is the easiest color to spot at a distance.

27. Central Park was the first public landscaped park in all of the United States.

28. The Jewish population in NYC is the largest in the world outside of Israel.

29. New York City’s 520-mile coastline is longer than those of Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco combined.

30. Cleopatra’s Needle, a 3,000-year-old Egyptian ruin, can actually be found in New York’s Central Park. In 1879 it was given to the city as a gift by the Khedive of Egypt. The 220-ton, 66-foot-high monument took a decade to be fully transported.

31. Sixty percent of cigarettes sold in NYC are illegally smuggled from other states.